In search of Ted Hughes
Jeremy Clarke
Given all the hoo-hah surrounding Prince Charles’s decision to allow a granite stone memorial to be placed in a secret and remote spot on Dartmoor in memory of his friend the poet Ted Hughes, I expected to encounter something along the lines of Cleopatra’s needle when I went to look for it last week.
The objections to Ted Hughes’s memorial were many and various. Environmentalists were concerned about soil erosion caused by the feet of hordes of literary pilgrims and paint pot-wielding feminists. Levellers complained about the exception being made to the ‘no memorials’ rule applying on Dartmoor. What’s so special about a poet? they said. Why not a farmer? Regional patriots were disgusted because Hughes was a Yorkshireman. And republicans raised their voices against it simply because Prince Charles had had a hand in organising its transport by army helicopter. Poor old Ted. A great English poet, a children’s champion and the last shaman of the tribe — vindictively hounded by ideological opponents and pea-brains even after his death.
The stone’s location was a well-kept secret until 2003, when a BBC reporter found it and broadcast its whereabouts. I can report, however, that as of last week the environmentalists’ fears, at least, appear to have been unfounded. Personally, I’d have been glad of a little erosion in the shape of a discernible footpath to the site. The remoteness of the spot, the ruggedness of the terrain, plus the necessity of crossing an army firing range to get there, seem to have put everyone off. The path disappeared into a bog after a mile or so and after that I was scrambling across marsh, bog, ford and shell crater using paths made by sheep, rabbits, and occasionally, tanks.
I found the memorial, finally, on top of an overgrown mediaeval tinners’ spoil heap in an amphitheatre of low desolate hills. It was the most modest, unobtrusive memorial imaginable. The stone is an uncut granite boulder, roughly the size and shape of a supine, shroud-covered Ted Hughes. Fringed with tough grass and covered in lichen, it looks completely natural. Carved into the bumpy surface is the simple, inexpertly executed inscription: TED HUGHES OM 1930–1998. The notches are already so well weathered that unless you are looking for an inscription you could easily miss it. The complainers were surely motivated by a childlike desire to fill the air with noise rather than by knowledge of the facts and a love of justice. Someone had left a 20-pence piece on the stone as a votive offering. And someone else, perhaps the same person, had shed the heel of his walking boot and simply left it there.
The stone is the perfect shape and height to sit and rest on. I resisted the idea and sat cross-legged on the grass beside it to drink a cup of green tea from the Thermos. It was a mind-bogglingly desolate spot. Looking north was just mile after mile of nothing much except the wandering fissure of the nascent river, and low, boulder-strewn, almost lunar hills. A mad cacophony of skylarks and the wind whistling eerily through the grass were the only sounds. It felt like the end of the earth.
I read aloud the Ted Hughes poem I’d brought — the tremendous ‘Rain Charm for the Duchy’ — and, being so far from civilisation, didn’t feel at all like an idiot. I took a lovely photograph of the granite slab framed in the background by the barren moonscape — then realised I had no film in the camera. Then I repacked my bag and had a last look around. That discarded heel, I noticed, was in fact mine.
Picking my way back down the steep river valley, the going was tough in places. Very uneven underfoot, Dartmoor, missing heel or no missing heel. And waterlogged in unexpected places, too. I tripped over a sheep, recently dead, its eyes pecked out, slumped against a waist-high granite boulder that had once upon a time been sprayed with machine-gun bullets. Ten yards further on was a single tiny black foot, all that remained of her newborn lamb. And further along I was subjected to the obsessive attentions of a cuckoo. I’d not seen a live one before, let alone been befriended by one, though of course I’ve occasionally heard one in the distance. This one flew just yards ahead of me, cuckooing, as if it was showing me the best way down, until it came to the only tree for miles around, a poor stunted thing, which appeared to be its billet. Strange that it should have come all the way from Africa to conduct its business in so barren a spot. Or was this Ted seeing me to the door? If it was, what cruel irony that the literary feminists’ public enemy number one should be reincarnated as a Dartmoor cuckoo! And then, would you believe it, my other heel came off, and I had to keep my mind, after that, off metaphysical speculation and on putting one foot in front of the other.
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